Community Authors Gem Choices Test

Hello Episode Community,

In the next few weeks and at least through the month of March you may start to see some Community Authored stories experimenting with adding gem choices. These are members of the Writer Payments Program who are helping the team test out this feature.

This is still a work in progress, nothing is definitive and we very much want to involve community feedback in this test. We invite you all to share any feedback you may have about this as you start to see stories in the app.

We also want to let you know that in response to community feedback we will be trying out new ways for you to earn gems in the app in the near future.

If you come across a choice or story that you feel may not be right for Episode or which might be out of line with our content guidelines, please help us out by reporting it to our review team! The best and fastest way to do this is to contact our support directly.

To learn how to contact support go HERE

To go directly to the contact form go HERE

Please leave your comments below or feel free to DM me here or on Instagram @episodecreators.

10 Likes

I’m honestly a little put out by this. Gem choices aren’t personally my favorite thing.

50 Likes

I personally don’t like gem choices because I feel like they take away from the story. Of course I would want to choose the better option but I never have enough gems. I love to read user stories because I don’t have to worry about saving gems for the next choice, so I was disappointed to hear that user stories are starting to have gem choices :frowning:

56 Likes

If I can clarify, we are giving community authors to option to add Gem Choices. If an author doesn’t want to add them they don’t have to.

9 Likes

I understand, but as a reader it’s really discouraging to read a story with gem choices…

34 Likes

The gems don’t only give away the smarter choice and thus damage the story, they’re also nothing but a product of greed.

The passes make things difficult enough without charging the user for not knowingly screwing up the entire story.

39 Likes

The only thing is if community authors start to use gems in their episode we should get gems on a daily bases. Why? Because if we’re constantly getting choices with gems that are obviously the better choice, we are tempted to tap them. After awhile we’ll run out of gems and for me at least there wouldn’t really be a point to read episodes if the better choice costs gems.

28 Likes

At the moment, I’m a little put out by gem choices, too. I think that a lot of the featured stories have too many or they cost too much, which is difficult when we’re all so young on this app! I would definitely be okay with some sort of subscription which gave you unlimited passes and access to gem choices, though. that’s something I’d definitely invest in!

Currently, though, I think that gems cost too much and are used up too quickly. It feels a little counterproductive to the whole “choose your story” aspect of Episode.

27 Likes

As for writing you on IG, you don’t even read DMs there :disappointed:

I applied to your form to give my opinion some days ago, but didn’t get any answer.

For gems answer is pretty simple: BIG NO.

First of all (and I don’t want to be rude or mean), gems for choices in featured stories are waisted! We give them for what - for meaningless options, like: pay for a gift you got. Gifts are for free! Next example: if I pay for ads free, why do I also have to give my gems to watch ads free?

Before giving the authors this option to use gems in their stories, you have to explain them in which way they can use it.

So if you’re looking for a way to earn money, GEMS WON’T HELP.

Passes are ok and are logical. Gems are not.

Ok, it would BE OK, if you give us the option to WATCH ADS FREE if we pay with gems. But you CAN’T give that option to people who BOUGHT ADS FREE ALREADY!

Now question remains how Episode can earn.

Maybe in writer’s portal directly! Make us pay for some exclusive options, BUT NOT OUTFITS! Maybe for making characters fat or old. Because this is something we lived without till now and we can live without it from now on… But who wants to pay for this option, can get it. Simple?

So give us something exclusive for the money. Choices are not! This Episode app is based on choices, we can’t pay for them.

25 Likes

I’m sorry if this seems angry or aggressive but I think this is an opinion that needs to be shown.

Just a question regarding that :point_up_2: Why is it always the people in the Exclusive Writer’s Room (from the old forum) or who recieve Writer’s Payments who test out new things, eg text effects and gem choices? Why don’t we smaller authors get a chance to test out new features? Are we unable to be trusted? Are we too unpopular? Are we bad authors? Are you afraid that we will misuse the features? What is it?

I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but in my opinion you can’t get proper community feedback if most of the community are only being allowed to be readers. They need to try out the donacoding too. Most of the high-end, receiving-writer’s-payments authors are amazing at writing and directing. No offense to the community but we’re worse writers than the ones right at the top. We need to experience writing gem choices too. The “good” writers will find it easy because they’ve mastered donacode. Smaller authors, on the other hand, haven’t mastered it and I feel that they should have a try and see how easy/difficult they find it. Now that would be feedback.

If anybody took any offense from that, I’m really sorry and didn’t mean to sound rude/horrible towards you. I just feel that this opinion needs to be expressed.

26 Likes

Well… No one says the author has to use it on story choices… You know, the author could just put a gem choices after perhaps each episode with something like

“If you’d like to support me and my stories, perhaps you’d like to spend some gems?”
Yes. 10 gems
No, skip to the end.

Done. No harm done to the story, but reader who can and would like to spend gems can do it voluntarily. :blush:

28 Likes

Those authors have a bigger fanbase, so… More people that might be willing to pay for choices. Also they’re usually those that update regularly. No one said they’re better writers though :slight_smile:

8 Likes

I’m against adding gems to choices and that solution is the best. It gives the reader the option to donate to you while experiencing the story in its full potential and outcome.

17 Likes

This is what I would do as well. It’s brilliant :heart: I wouldn’t want gem choices in any other parts of my stories.

9 Likes

I support the idea that gem choices ruin the story. The opportunity of supporting the author is fantastic, but does it really need to be done by sacrificing the reader experience?

Personally, I dislike the feeling when I see a character offering another character an opportunity to do something together… and here comes a gem choice. I can’t help but think that I’m missing out on a great scene (made with love and effort by the author) because I don’t want to invest money right now.
I’m an adult and I have nothing against paying for good content, but 1) it must be really good and nothing can guarantee that; and 2) there isn’t so much money allocated to entertainment in my monthly budget. I read Episode because I’m interested in the work of some authors, but also because it’s not an expensive leisure activity. I will most probably stop reading most stories with gem choices because I don’t want to feel bad for organizing my finance in a well-balanced way. And if I have to choose between hobbies that cost money, I’ll definitely buy a book or go to the movies instead of buying gems.

At the same time, gem choices are a good way of filtering adult content. This use of gems seems very reasonable to me, as well as @Antika’s idea of adding a possibility to support an author without destroying the story (if the money reaches the author in the end, of course).

29 Likes

lol I hope the gems would reach the author… otherwise why should they add them in the first place :smiley:

6 Likes

If they don’t, then they’re basically making this for nothing.

3 Likes

People might be really evil :smiley:

2 Likes

One of my friends is one of the authors who has received the option to test this out and the money doesn’t go to the authors.

3 Likes

I was part of the original test and honestly, although I was against the idea at first it ended up not being that bad. I didn’t gain any complaints from readers who got the gem version of my story. In fact, that gem version now has more reads than the original lol. I really think it depends on how an author chooses to utilise the feature. In my story, choices matter a LOT. My stories are very heavily branched. Rather than just bonus scenes, my gem choices gave bonus points or enabled a reader to get something they missed out on getting by themselves (such as someone’s trust). The non-gem version of the story didn’t have these choices at all! So those who got the gem version weren’t disadvantaged. Basically, if you bought a gem choice in my story it would decrease your risk of someone dying but not spending gems wouldn’t impact your storyline at all.

I’m personally going to be keeping the gem version of my story so my readers don’t lose their progress and when both versions are released to everyone, I honestly don’t think that anyone who got the gem version is going to be angry with me. They weren’t disadvantaged by receiving that version. I think gem choices should add value (special bonus scenes, bonus points, bonus information) but should NOT detract from the story or ruin the ending.

Going forward, I’m not sure that I’ll use this. Truthfully, putting those gem choices in took me WEEKS as I was trying to find the best way to integrate choices that would give the reader a bonus but not disadvantage any reader who was unable to make a purchase. If I was writing a new story, then I might use this feature going forward as I’d be able to properly plan for it. In nearly all my stories, there are “bad endings” and in two, you can die. I don’t mind putting gem choices in for readers to get extra advantages or to be able to purchase something they previously missed out on.

Ultimately, I think the use of gem choices is going to depend on the author and how they use it. It wouldn’t benefit any author to charge gems for basic choices or choices that had a drastic impact on the story as people would stop reading.

11 Likes